Uncovering new dimensions in the team

Are you a perpetual learner?  We are at Pro-Development and as a team, we love learning. With Learning at Work week being this month, I wanted to use one of the themes around “uncovering new dimensions” to share some of my experiences of learning to hopefully inspire you. 

I’m always open to learning new things, exploring new opportunities, new ways to develop myself or further my knowledge and skills, either from books, workshops or from those I connect with. The principal of a college I once attended (he was 70 at the time) said to every student that he was still a student himself and learns something new every day – a very wise statement from a wise man! I was inspired by his attitude to learning, it was open and teachable, I always want to be like that, don’t you?

Let’s be those that have a growth mindset, one that embraces challenges, keeps trying and never gives up, persists in the face of setbacks, says “I will learn from failure”, knows this will take time and hard work and thinks ‘I want to keep learning”, because learning doesn’t come easy to everyone.

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that it’s good to keep learning, to embrace new ideas, ways of working and oh yes… technology! Like a lot of others, we at Pro-Development had to learn a new way of facilitating our provision and moved it online for a time whilst we weren’t able to deliver face to face, we quickly learnt how to embrace working from home and now a hybrid working environment for some. Looking back the way I work now is totally different to what it was before the pandemic, what about you? Without that growth mindset it would have been a greater challenge to rise to all the changes.

We like to ‘practice what we preach’ so recently the facilitators got together for two days to share and learn best practice with each other so we can deliver even more awesome training to our clients.

The whole team also got together for a day and looked at our individual ‘Strengths Profile’, our DiSC personality profiles, and our impact – how we reach our personal, business and team potential with authenticity and passion, finishing the day with a firewalk!  Wow what a day of learning that was!

Misunderstandings… they are everywhere and, in every workforce, so how can we reduce them? Having the time to truly get to know each other is such a precious gift. At our away day, each of the team completed a Strengths Profile which helped us to identify our strengths, unrealised strengths, learned behaviour and our weaknesses. We shared these with each other answering some gentle yet challenging questions.

Without this conversation we may not have identified things that help get the best out of each other for example… that for some ‘being clear on deadlines’ helps them set their expectations and not delay others, ‘being on time and getting straight to the point’ is important in meetings, having ‘detail and structure’ is essential to some, ‘chatting through the pro’s & con’s’ helps others or to reaffirm that someone is ‘making a noticeable difference’. We’re all different, taking the time out to care and share this helped us to learn how we can support each other and utilise each other’s strengths. Playing to our strengths means we’ll always show up as our best self, living our best life and stepping into our brilliance!

Taking time out to learn… we can think that it’s not a good time to learn or take the team out for a day, we can question if we can afford it, at Pro-Development we’ve determined that we can’t afford to NOT do it! Devoting quality time to developing your team reaps its rewards in so many ways including engaged team members, a happier team, a more knowledgeable team to name a few. Our team away day proved to us yet again that open, honest, vulnerable communication brings such freedom and rapport into the workplace. I know our team will be even better for it! So, let’s never stop learning and develop a posture of learning in ourselves and a culture of learning in our teams.

Come and talk to us about your team needs – we will ask tons of questions and really get an understanding of what you need (it might not always be what you think) but if a team day is the answer, we can promise to work with you to provide a bespoke experience that makes a BIG difference.

If you are an SME in York, North Yorkshire or the East Riding, you might also be eligible for 40% funding towards the investment!

Contact us on  01904 628838 or info@1245881.eu11.myftpupload.com to find out more.